Blogging
From Abroad

Most Americans who have traveled abroad can probably relate to this…there you are in a foreign country, dazzled by all the new sights and sounds, so you find yourself wandering the city streets when suddenly…you turn a corner and are confronted with what I like to call McCulture Shock.

I call it that because, for me at least, it usually involves a McDonald’s, although I have had the same experience with KFC and Pizza Hut.

The first time I experienced McCulture Shock was in France, I think…that was the first time I had ever entered an American fast food chain in another country…I went up to the counter to order and discovered that the McDonald’s Francais menu carried not only McChicken sandwiches, but also espressos and that quintessential French sandwich, the croque monsieur…or, as it is known in McSpeak, Croque McDo…(excuse my borrowed photo, I don’t have any France pics on my laptop…this is from CNN.com)...

And then at a later date in Spain…McGazpacho…

There are few things I feel I really have a bead on in life, but what to expect at a McDonald’s is generally one of them. Upsetting those assumptions makes my world tilt off-kilter.

So. I thought I was prepared for China…I’ve been abroad many times before, I’ve had culture shock and I know what it feels like, I’ve been to Asia before so I know how different it can be from Western nations (even Europe was still reminiscent of America in many ways to me)...I was mentally geared up and it was just not going to happen in China…until there I found myself, wandering the streets of Suzhou, only to turn a corner and be confronted with this…

A little something I can only call a McRickshaw.

我就喜欢 (wo jiu xihuan) means “I really like it”...or, in McSpeak, “I’m lovin’ it!”

Other things that catch me unawares…

Often in cities people will carry giant water thermoses to a water heating station once a day, instead of boiling their own water, using their thermoses to make things like tea and noodles…

Traffic is always surprising to me…especially the conspicuous absence of traffic police and the fact that cars do not slow down for pedestrians in crosswalks, nor are bike lanes solely relegated to bikes (ever see a bus zip down a lane 1/2 the size of the vehicle?)...apparently, neither are sidewalks solely for pedestrians (bikes are very common, cars and vans are not unheard of)...walking in China is a bit weird at first, because you have to learn to walk exactly in a straight line and to look backwards before moving in any other direction (mostly because of motorbikes speeding up behind you)...you also have to learn to listen for bike horns and to quickly sidle to the edge of the sidewalk when you hear one…no joke, this will happen over and over and over again each time you go out…anyway, here’s hour two of a huge traffic jam in Xi’an, which basically occurred because the drivers inside of this roundabout wouldn’t allow others to go first, so a complete state of gridlock was achieved with our bus caught directly in the middle…now, nobody would back out or move, either, until each driver got out of his/her vehicle and consulted with all the other drivers at length over who should go first and who should do what…I don’t know how it ended because I was heading to the train station, so we just got out and walked sometime into the second hour…

Pulling an animal head out of a cooked dish also gets me every time…hello, chicken!

Clothing habits get me too…for example, there’s a big trend of women wearing nude ankle-high stockings (AKA footies) with highly ornate heels and clothing that does not cover their ankles, leaving the band of the stocking visible…

...then there’s the traditional way of dressing potty-training children…crotchless pants…

...and there’s the habit of men folding their shirts up around their midriffs…

...all those take some getting used to and are usually when I realize I’m not in Kansas anymore…and the culture shock starts setting in.

So, yes. McCulture Shock. Somebody should write a book about it before McDonald’s licenses it.